


Stick

by sabinelagrande



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Fantasy Races, Alternate Universe - Tattoo Parlor, First Meetings, Flirting, Gen, Masochism, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 13:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14833106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sabinelagrande/pseuds/sabinelagrande
Summary: Molly is in need of a new artist.





	Stick

It's really not much of a surprise to Molly when his new tattoo artist blows town. He's just surprised it didn't happen sooner; he chose this artist for his prices and his aesthetic rather than his business sense or his good name. The issue is not that he disapproves of skipping town, having made a habit of it himself. The issue is that it leaves Molly with one big problem, and that problem is very visible whenever he wears short sleeves.

So he asks around; he and Yasha haven't been here long, only since the circus broke up, and truth be told, they don't have just loads of local friends who might do things like recommend tattoo parlors. He ends up with a rec from one of Yasha's coworkers, whom Molly only very tangentially knows. Still, the shop's website looks promising, and that's enough for Molly to be going on.

He goes to the shop late one weekday afternoon, when they're likely to be there but not particularly busy. A bell over the door rings as Molly enters, and what he sees is more or less what he expected. The shop is open plan, a desk in the front and two stations set up, art all over the walls. At one of them, a human woman with an undercut is hard at work, all her attention focused on the customer in front of her, a half-orc who's resting backwards in a chair, unmoving. He's having a huge back piece worked on, an outline of an anchor with some stuff that Molly can't quite make out in it; in the center is a large yellow eye. It's unsettling, but Molly has respect for unsettling tattoos. In the back, there is a blue-haired tiefling, blocked almost entirely from Molly's view by a shelf; indeed, Molly only knows she's a blue-haired tiefling because all he can see of her is hair and horns.

The human woman looks up, registering Molly's presence but looking mostly annoyed at the interruption. "Jester, customer."

"Be right there!" the tiefling says, in a chipper voice with an accent from somewhere around Nicodranis, unless Molly misses his guess.

Molly flicks through the book of tattoos labeled "Jester" that's sitting on the front desk, approving of what he sees. There is a sign next to it in a gilded frame, written in pink with blue and green curlicues around it. It reads "Ask about our dick discount!", and Molly knows that if he comes back here more than once, he is absolutely going to get the dick discount.

Jester emerges from behind the shelf; she has blue skin that's a bit lighter than her hair, and she's wearing a fluffy dress that hits just below the knee. Uncharacteristically for a tattoo artist, she doesn't have a ton of tattoos herself, but as she gets closer, he can see the pinup of a red-skinned tiefling holding a pie that covers the inside of one of her forearms.

"Hello, my name is Jester," she says. "And what can I do for you?"

Molly takes off his jacket, holding out his arm, with its unfinished design. "Had an artist, he fucked me over," he tells her.

Without asking, Jester takes his arm, running a critical eye over the work there. "He gave you a pretty good half of a snake before he did," she says.

"He only fucked me over in that he left in the dead of night with no forwarding address and no copy of the flash," he says. "If I didn't like his work, that wouldn't count as fucking me over at all."

She's still studying the artwork, running her fingers lightly up Molly's arm in a way that makes him shiver a little. "I can work with this," she says finally, letting go of his arm. "Will you let me do it freehand, or are you going to make me draw it out?"

"I live on the edge," Molly says. "Maybe we'll compromise and you can draw it straight onto my skin before you ink it."

Jester grins. "Perfect," she says. She opens the binder on the desk and turns it around towards him. "Sign this and show me your ID, please."

Jester impatiently watches him fill out the form and checks his passport only briefly before taking him by the hand and pulling him towards the open station. The way she leads him, he goes by the half orc's chair, on the opposite side from the artist. The half orc, whom Molly can see now is very attractive, gives him a nod, but otherwise looks completely stoic.

"That's Beau with the needle and Fjord with the tattoo," Jester says.

"Hey," Beau says gruffly, not looking up.

"Howdy," Fjord says, and Molly detects a note of strain in his voice.

"They are usually more talkative," Jester says, pushing Molly into the hot seat and sitting down on the stool next to him. She adjusts the chair so that there's a support for Molly's arm, then picks up a pen holder, slotting in a fresh refill before she starts drawing. Like most tieflings, he has no hair on his arms to interfere, and the ink goes on smoothly as she begins to sketch. She does it quickly, but with intent, her sharp teeth worrying her lower lip as she concentrates. The effect is cute, but he refrains from telling her that; she's about to stab him a few thousand times, and he doesn't know if she's the type to appreciate it.

All things considered, she barely takes any time to finish the design, especially not compared to how long it will take to ink it. She sits back, looking her work over, adding a line or two before she nods in approval. "See what you think," she says, squeezing Molly's fingers before she lets him go.

Molly looks at the art, turning his arm this way and that to appreciate it. She hasn't made an attempt to copy the previous style, but there's a gradation in it, a transition between the old work and the new area that makes it look intentional. It's really quite well done, and without asking, she's made the red mark on his hand into the eye of the snake.

"Of course, this will all be in the same colors," Jester assures him. "These ones look good with the purple."

"I'll take it," Molly says.

"Good," she says, grinning widely. "Then I will get set up and draw all over you."

Jester sets up her inks and needles with practiced speed, wiggling her fingers at the bottles at her station and plucking out the colors she needs. Molly adjusts, sinking into the chair and crossing his legs at the ankles. He's going to be here for at least two hours, so it won't do to get uncomfortable right at the beginning.

"Okay, here we go," Jester says, over the noise of her gun turning on, putting a hand on Molly's arm to hold him still. Molly looks away; he's a bit superstitious about this part, doesn't want to see the needle coming in case this is the time he backs out. It hasn't even come close to happening yet, but now it's just a thing he does. And then the pain comes, that peculiar sensation that feels like being cut and stung at the same time, and for the umpteenth time, Molly doesn't go anywhere.

At the beginning, the pain is just annoying; the missing part of the snake is in a fairly lean area, so it's up there as far as tattoo pain goes. But as Jester works, he feels it coming on, the point where the pain clicks over into something different. Molly shuts his eyes, letting it wash over him. There are cheaper highs with much less permanent effects, but he just likes this one so much. It still hurts, and hurts a lot, but it also feels amazing. Neither of these things lessens the other.

"So what is it about?" Jester asks, not taking her eyes off of her work.

"What is what about?" Molly says, pleased when it doesn't come out slurred.

"The snake," she says. "Do you study snakes, or do you have a pet snake you really, really love, or is it a dirty joke, or something else?"

This isn't the first time he's been asked about his tattoos, having several of them in prominent places. The answer is the same for all of them; they're a reclamation, a way to make himself comfortable in this body that is apparently his, a reminder that he directs its course now, no matter what kind of person it- he- used to be.

"I wrestled a snake once," he tells Jester. "Great big thing."

"Really?" she says, looking up at him and smiling brightly.

"Oh yes," Molly says. "A constrictor. Nearly strangled me before I got it down."

"Did you wrestle a peacock too?" Jester asks, indicating his neck with her free hand.

"And that's why I'm banned from the zoo," he says. She laughs, and Molly likes the sound of it, bright and clear and delighted. She doesn't question him again about the snake, just goes back to her work, and Molly is annoyed by how relieved he feels.

Jester keeps working, and Molly loses track of time; there's no clock in his line of vision, and he doesn't want to pull out his cell phone without warning Jester about the movement. He just sits there instead, taking all of it in.

At some point, the bell on the front door rings, and Molly looks up by force of habit. There is a man standing there in a long brown coat with a furred collar, looking out of place and a little uncomfortable.

"Caleb!" Jester says, like she doesn't notice his unease at all.

"Hallo," Caleb says, not looking any more comfortable.

"Hey, man," Beau says. "Don't just stand in the doorway, come on in."

"I am sorry to barge in if you are both working," Caleb says, in a prominent Zemnian accent, as he steps in further. "I will come back."

"It's fine," Beau says, leaning back from Fjord and switching her gun off; Fjord sags a little. "Give me two minutes to bandage this guy up and I'll be right with you."

"It's really nothing," Caleb says. "I just came to see if I could borrow this month's book from either of you."

"You're in luck," Beau says, wiping down Fjord's back. "I have it and I'm done."

"Wunderbar," Caleb says. "Then I will sit here and wait on you."

"Book club?" Molly asks Jester.

"Uh huh," she says. "We read the best book this month. It had a war, and a romance, and a hot half orc."

Out of the corner of his eye, Molly looks at Fjord, but Fjord is paying both of them no mind. "Sounds intriguing," he says.

"It's called _Tusk Love_ ," Jester says. "I won't spoil it for you, but you should really read it."

"I'll put it on my list," he says, though he's never been much of a reader.

Beau bandages Fjord up and leaves with Caleb, but Fjord makes no move to get up. Molly gets the sense that he's not your average customer, and he also looks wrecked following the amount of work he just got. He's clearly got a few sessions to go still, and he's probably earned a little rest.

By the time Beau comes back, Jester has finished the outline of the snake and is beginning the color. Molly watches as she does it, moving the needle just so, little circles as she fills the design. She does one color at a time, in a way that Molly can't really wrap his head around. His artistic skills aren't great, and he doesn't know how she can keep it all in her head with no sketch, which areas should have what so that it comes together.

The head of the snake, however, is all one color, and soon it's all that's left. "This next part is gonna hurt like really bad," Jester warns him. She's not wrong; the part that remains is entirely on his hand, which is nothing but bones and skin.

Molly gets comfortable, relaxing into the chair. "Do your worst."

It does hurt, and very badly. The outline maybe hurt more, but it was over quickly; this hurts and doesn't stop hurting, since there's so much area to cover.

Molly can't stop the way he groans, his toes curling inside his boots.

Beau mutters something that definitely involves calling Molly a masochist, but Molly is really only concerned by how fast she clocked him. He takes a surreptitious look down at himself to make sure he doesn't have an erection, but he seems to be good on that front. He feels like he should be offended, but he's too high on endorphins to get there right now.

"Are you okay?" Jester asks, in a voice that says she's got his number.

"Holding up just fine," Molly says, and this time it does come out a little slurred. "All smooth sailing here."

"Good," she says, continuing with her work, and Molly shuts his eyes and enjoys it.

In too short a time, Jester is wiping him down and rubbing salve over the surface of his new tattoo. "What do you think?" she asks.

Molly opens and closes his hand, because right now he finds it deeply amusing to make the snake "talk". "That's a very fine snake," he says. "Just what I wanted."

"I'm so glad," Jester says, and she bandages the new area. She runs him through the care and feeding of the fresh tattoo, and he listens politely despite having done it several times at this point. She has to steady him as he stands up; she's not shy about leaning into him, and she's much stronger than she looks. Molly supposes she needs to be, to do such precise work with a buzzing instrument for long periods of time.

Beau and Fjord are at the desk when Molly and Jester arrive, Fjord sitting backwards in the desk chair. Jester reaches over him casually, like it's nothing to invade his personal space, and Fjord only rolls back an inch or two to give her space. Jester quotes Molly a price, and Molly pulls out his wallet, putting a stack of bills in her hand. "And the extra is for you," he says.

"How sweet of you," Jester says brightly, counting the money and putting it into her register.

"What is the dick discount, anyway?" Molly asks, carefully putting his jacket back on.

"If I design for you, you get money back for every dick that goes in it," Jester says. "Don't worry, I can make them very tasteful."

"Good to know," he says.

"And once you recover, you can come back in and I can tell you more," she says, passing him his receipt. 

"I don't need to recover," Molly says with a smile. "I just need to get paid."

"Only my favorite customers say that," Jester says, matching it.

"Maybe he should come to book club," Fjord says, which comes sort of out of nowhere.

"That's a great idea!" Jester says, clapping her hands. She turns back to Molly. "You will, won't you?"

"Uh," Molly says, unprepared for this. He's just a client, and one who's only been in here once. "What the hell," he says, shrugging. "I do love a good book."

"If you don't love the book, there's always a lot of wine," Jester says. She scribbles down an email address on a slip of paper and hands it to him. "Contact me and I will send you all the details." She grins. "And I will see you again when you get paid."

"Absolutely," Molly says. "And all of you have a wonderful evening," he says to the group at large.

"Take care," Fjord says, and Beau gives him a little sarcastic salute.

So Molly leaves with an email address, half of a snake, and a story to tell Yasha about this shop he found, one with very interesting people attached.

He might even read the book.


End file.
